There are two trends in current culture. One is exemplified in the sad situation described in the post from this morning. Such traumatic events suggest we are on a downward spiral of exploitation and injustice. That is not the whole story though, thankfully. There are tales of progress which are inspiring and hopeful. The recent BBC programme on Arthur Ashe gave one powerful example of someone who rose to fame and prominence against all the odds without sacrificing his integrity. Lemn Sissay’s life is another one. Homa Khaleeli describes how in last Friday’s Guardian article. Below is an extract: for the full post see link.

In October the University of Manchester is going to have to clone Lemn Sissay, or at least, he suggests, “make a hologram of me”. That’s the month the 48-year-old poet is due to collect an honorary PhD, which, as the university’s newly-elected chancellor, he is also responsible for presenting.

When we meet, Sissay is sitting on the roof terrace of a private members’ club in a black T shirt, black jeans and sunglasses. In other words, he looks like a performer whose poetry has appeared everywhere from Leftfield’s award-winning album Leftism to the Olympic Park – and not much like an academic grandee.

But a few details set him apart. The first is a smile so broad that it’s an invitation to make him laugh. Then there is his afro, touched with grey. And finally, when he pushes back his sleeves, the marks you can see on his arm are not from a tattoo parlour, but homemade ink stains, and scars that hint at a pain sharper than needle on skin.

It’s impossible not to warm to Sissay. When I ask how he feels about winning the election (by more than 1,000 votes), he refuses to reflect on his own success, instead focusing on what such victories mean for the black community. He quotes a friend who wrote to him saying, “‘It’s a new day. It’s Sir Lenny Henry, it’s Chancellor Jackie Kay [the poet and novelist recently elected to Salford University] and Chancellor Lemn Sissay.’ Things are changing and that’s a good thing.”

But how does a poet beat a politician in an election? And not just any politician, but Mandelson? The writer denies having had a strategy – his campaign video, in which he performs a poem called Mercurial Graphene in Manchester, was shot four days before voting closed. . . . .

He is clear about his intention as the figurehead for the university: “To encourage as many care-leavers as possible to pursue education.” It’s a cause he is already working towards. At the University of Huddersfield there is a PhD scholarship in his name for care-leavers. He has inspired another in Leeds, and hopes Manchester will follow suit.

This commitment stems from his own childhood in care, a subject he has returned to with heartbreaking effect in his plays, poems and documentaries. Sissay’s mother came to the UK from Ethiopia not knowing she was pregnant, and when he was a few months old asked for Sissay to be temporarily fostered while she studied.

. . . . He was moved from homes to foster placements while his birth mother wrote anguished letters from Ethiopia asking when he would be returned. As the only black boy in each home, he was nicknamed Chalky White and spat at on public transport. At 16 he took to refusing to wear shoes, continuing to walk barefoot through snow, and to hospital for his cut feet.